


Ricin

by tirsynni



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: AU exploration, Dark, Ficlet, Supervillain!Spidey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8415112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: Peter Parker asked one thing of them, and they failed. Now it's his turn.





	

Creating a persona was easy. The name, the costume, the equipment...ideas like birds fluttering above, waiting to be plucked from the sky. He did it all before at the tender age of 15. Even made his own webslingers to complement his chosen name and his powers. He just had to be careful about being too clever, too ironic, too busy amusing himself to focus on weaknesses.

All of this flit through Peter Parker’s mind as he watched them lower May Parker into the cold ground. He watched from the treeline, hiding in the shadows like he used to do right before he struck an enemy. He was known for his agility and webs, but few people committed that portion of his attack style to mind. It wasn’t flashy or fun. Nothing to see here, folks: just another spider slinking in the shade. 

The crowd was small but sincere. He saw Mary Jane and her aunt, MJ comforting the weeping woman. There was Harry Osborn, looking like hell, on MJ’s other side. All dressed in black, looking classy and expensive, the morbid glamor almost enough to hide Harry’s unnatural pallor and the wild gleam of his eyes.

_ Relapse _ , Peter noted, in that portion of his mind which was already designing and weaving and plotting.

Other faces, too, from Aunt’s May’s book club and Stitch and Bitch group and neighbors. Many were dressed in the same nice but worn black clothes they used at the funerals of their other aging friends. That group was calmer than the rest, recognizing their fate in that lowered coffin. Peter’s gaze flickered over them, familiarity and recognition of their expressions more than their faces registering and being tucked away in a corner to be examined later. None of these people were surprising.

Johnny Storm was. Peter’s gaze moved back to him, thoughts twisting into new patterns every time he saw Johnny’s pale face. The man wore the same type of expensive, black funeral clothes as Harry Osborn, but he lacked the same grace to carry them off. The clothes didn’t look classy on him: he looked like he was attending his own funeral. They dampened him, darkened him, turned him into a smoulder instead of a flame.

Or maybe that was just Johnny’s expression.

No other superheroes were there. Not many, but a few knew of Spider-Man’s true identity: Tony Stark, Wolverine, Daredevil… Tony hadn’t revealed his identity to the rest of the Avengers. He wanted Spidey as his own little secret weapon. Johnny never told the Fantastic Four. The other two found out due to their senses and were loners at heart. A handful of superheroes knew, and not a damned one could fulfill their promise.

Peter recognized the preacher praying as the audience -- because that’s what they were, the audience -- threw their roses one by one into the grave. He was the same one who spoke at Uncle Ben’s funeral. He said the same prayer, spoken clearly: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

There were many rooms, all right. Filled with  _ Peter’s _ dead. To Aunt May’s left, there was Uncle Ben. To their right were the graves of Richard and Mary Parker. Then there was Peter’s grave: 1994 - 2016.  _ “Sleep on now, and take your rest.” _

“There ain’t no rest for the wicked,” Peter sang quietly and slipped away.

No one looked his way. One by one, the funeral goers left, leaving their roses behind to rot. Johnny Storm held another rose and carried it to Peter Parker’s grave. He swept away an old, dead rose and replaced it with the new one. He stood still even as his dead friend swept away from the graveyard.

Peter slipped through alleys and darkened roads to the portions of the city that people like the Avengers and the Fantastic Four never saw. He avoided Hell’s Kitchen and slunk deeper into the dark, away from the bright green and cold grey of the graveyard.

One favor Peter asked: if anything ever happened to him, take care of Aunt May. Instead, he crawled back from his own grave to find his aunt bankrupt and broken. Breaking into the medical examiner’s office was hardly the most difficult thing he ever did. Cause of death: massive heart attack.  _ Myocardial infarction _ . The obituary explained that it happened when she was alone at home. Report read her time of death at approximately 1:30pm. The police report stated that she was found by a neighbor two days later. Two days for her body to grow cold in what used to be their home. Where were her friends? Where were  _ Peter’s _ friends?

There were pictures in both reports. They replayed over and over as Peter claimed an old villain’s abandoned hideout for his own. He knew all the old hiding places. He knew all the tricks. He knew what worked and what failed. He knew why villains like the Kingpin and Hydra thrived while Mysterio and his ilk failed. He also knew he had surprise on his side.

Webslingers were modified. Didn’t want the association with Spider-Man, after all. The superheroes knew  _ his _ tricks, too. Costume color was easy: black. There was a lot of mourning going on. 

There would be no grand entrance. There would be no speeches. Just death.

“Call me Ricin,” he breathed, slipping the black mask over his head. 

**Author's Note:**

> Plan is to make this into a full Johnny Storm/Peter Parker fic after Nanowrimo is done. I have plans to explore dark!Spidey. For now, it's a enjoy the nice Halloween ficlet.


End file.
